Docs opening in Canada this week

Let’s get ready to Rumble! Canada finds its 20 Feet from Stardom in this winner of both the Audience Award and the Audience Award for Canadian film at this year’s Hot Docs film festival. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World assembles an admirable cast of talking heads including Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson, Stevie Salas, Steven Tyler and Martin Scorsese to pay tribute to the unheralded legacy of Indigenous musicians. Director Catherine Bainbridge and co-director Alfonso Maiorana’s inspired and excellently assembled rock doc delivers an inclusive slice of musical history straight from the heart. The chorus of voices in this film, which won a well-deserved special prize at Sundance for masterful storytelling, is a proud feat that takes ownership of Indigenous contributions to popular music and celebrates the Native voice. Read more about Rumble in the feature ‘Message in the Music’ and in thePOVreview.

Another music doc, which, coincidentally, is covered in the same current POV featurealongside Rumble, is Tokyo Idols. This popular Sundance and Hot Docs offering is Japanese director Kyoke Miyake’s portrait of the young women behind the J-pop phenomenon. This eye-opening film, shot by Canadian DP Van Royko and produced by Bob Moore of EyeSteelFilm, gets at the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and internet popularity. “It reminded me how confusing it was for me to grow up as a girl in Japan,” Miyake told POV. “I felt like every time I wasn’t acting ‘cute,’ people thought I was defiant. So when I saw the idol-girls phenomenon, it felt like it represented everything that made me feel uncomfortable about being a woman in Japan.” Read more about Tokyo Idols in ‘Message in the Music’